A deputy Israeli army commander has been sacked for ordering soldiers to fire on the 15 aid workers killed in Gaza last month.

A commander will also be reprimanded over an “incomplete and inaccurate” report on the incident, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said.

IDF soldiers shot and killed medical workers driving ambulances in the southern city of Rafah on March 23.

After the event, the IDF said its troops had been conducting a “vital mission aimed at targeting terrorists” and had not known the vehicles were ambulances.

The soldiers were accused of binding and executing the workers, then crushing the ambulances to hide the evidence.

An IDF investigation into the incident has now identified “several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.

The investigators admitted that there had been operational flaws but said they did not find any evidence to support claims of execution or binding of victims before or after their killing.